


Chronic Pain

by icewhisper



Series: Holiday Cheer & Tears [22]
Category: DC's Legends of Tomorrow (TV), The Flash (TV 2014)
Genre: Bad Things Happen Bingo, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-22
Updated: 2018-12-22
Packaged: 2019-09-25 01:44:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,255
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17112089
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/icewhisper/pseuds/icewhisper
Summary: The pain was what woke him up – that familiar pulsing feeling on the left side of his head. The way it throbbed and ached with every beat of his heart, every pump of blood.





	Chronic Pain

The pain was what woke him up – that familiar pulsing feeling on the left side of his head. The way it throbbed and ached with every beat of his heart, every pump of blood.

He swore, face pressed into his pillow as his stomach rolled, and tried to will it away. It didn’t work – not that it ever did – and he reached towards the nightstand blindly with his fingers spread wide and trying to find his stuff. The pill bottle rolled off to the floor and hit with a clatter that shouldn’t have made pain burst in his head like it did. Whatever. The nausea was bad enough that he didn’t think he would have been able to hold them down anyway.

He heard soft steps – practiced and careful – approach the bed and cool fingers brush his. “I’ve got it,” Len whispered.

Mick grunted some noise that may have been a word or not one at all and rolled onto his back, taking the pillow with him. He thought the curtains were still drawn, but he wasn’t going to look. It wasn’t worth the risk, he thought as he felt Len pull his shirt up to expose his belly. He flinched at the coolness of the alcohol wipe and the prick of the needle.

He thought he mumbled something that was supposed to be a _thanks_ , but he couldn’t hear his own voice over the pounding in his head.

Len squeezed his hand for just a second and, then, he was gone.

\---

“Again?” Lisa asked when he came back into the living room, voice purposefully soft.

Len nodded and let her pass the blueprints back to him when he sat beside her on the couch. “He’ll sleep it off.”

She hummed, but her brows were still furrowed. She didn’t like it. Len knew she didn’t like it. _He_ didn’t like it. There was nothing he could do about it, though. Between the repeated trauma from the Time Master’s induction chair and the receiver they’d put in Mick’s head – and that Stein shoddily removed – it had done its damage. The migraines were unavoidable.

He rubbed at his shoulder where Gideon had regenerated it after the Oculus had blown it clean off. It didn’t hurt or give him issues the way Mick’s head gave him problems now, but it had become a nervous habit. His left shoulder. His right wrist. He knew it was psychosomatic, the idea that he could feel where real skin met regenerated, but he’d stopped worrying about it a while ago.

They were both messed up, battered and changed by the things they’d gone through since they stepped on the Waverider. Some days, Len regretted it. It wasn’t because of what happened to him. He could deal with the years he’d lost as he fell through the time stream, but Mick… Mick would punch him if Len admitted he felt guilty, but it didn’t change that he did.

“You’re brooding,” Lisa accused as she fiddled with the inner workings of her gold gun.

“I’m planning.”

“That’s not your planning face. That’s your brooding face.”

He scowled at her. “There’s a difference now?”

She hummed. “You don’t blink when you plan. It’s kind of creepy, actually.”

He opened his mouth and shut it again, not sure how to respond. He always did use an unnatural amount of eye drops when he was planning. “Shut up.”

\---

He hated the Time Masters.

It wasn’t that he didn’t before. They’d tried their damnedest to fuck him over, sticking him in that chair again and again like it would force out the part of him that was so angry and make him as blank and lifeless as the other bounty hunters. It never worked. It never _could_ work, because Mick knew how to hold a grudge when he wanted to. Len was a petty bastard, but Mick had always had him beat when it came to grudges.

But they’d tried and even if the inductions hadn’t stuck, the damage did. It had stuck and wasn’t going away. Before they’d left the Waverider and headed off into something Len swore wasn’t retirement – but Mick knew was halfway there – Len had made him sit through hours of scans with Gideon with furrowed brows watching as spots of damage lit up. Mick hadn’t helped himself along with the drinking or the truly unhealthy amount of aspirin he’d been taking daily either. Chronic migraines that Len – in an effort to soothe Mick’s grumbling one day – said was ironic, because Len was the one prone to head injuries.

Considering most of Len’s head injuries had come from Lewis, Mick hadn’t found it funny.

The apartment – “Just because the Rogues hang out here, it doesn’t mean it’s a safe house, Len.” – was nice; bigger than Mick really thought they needed, but the windows were all outfitted with blackout curtains and Len had given Mick free rein of the kitchen. It had involved a near-limitless credit card under a fake name and the packages all getting delivered to STAR Labs.

Mick didn’t think the heroes knew about it.

Len had seemed too smug when he brought the packages home.

If anyone ever traced the fake card back to STAR Labs, the Flash was going to have some explaining to do.

The spare room, though, was Len’s territory. Filled with bin upon bin of yarn and knitting projects that ranged from horrible to not that bad. It had been Len’s own version of physical therapy after Gideon had needed to regenerate both his arms and Len said his dexterity wasn’t the same anymore, that they felt weird sometimes. Mick wasn’t sure how much of it was real and how much was Len being overly critical of himself.

Either way, Mick had a drawer full of uneven scarves and saggy hats, and Len had a mug that said _I knit, because stabbing people is frowned upon_.

It was where Mick found him when he finally managed to drag himself out of bed that afternoon. His head was still aching just a bit behind his eye, but the pills would kick in on their own time. “What the fuck is that?”

Len frowned down at the baby blue monstrosity across his lap. “A sweater,” he said, but his tone pitched at the end, like it was a question. “It’s for Lisa.”

“Start over,” he advised as he sat down next to Len on the little couch.

Len groaned, but he started to unravel what he’d done, so he seemed to agree. “One to ten?”

“Two,” Mick replied after a second of evaluation.  “Already took my pills. You hungry?” He could probably whip something up. He doubted Len had made himself anything that a grown adult would actually consider satisfying. Something on the blander side, he thought. He was always too sensitive to smell after a migraine. He didn’t want to trigger another one.

“Lisa made soup before she left,” Len said, distracted, as he unraveled more and more of the sweater. “She wouldn’t let me in the kitchen.”

He really loved Lisa. “Take a break. You can start over later.” He stood, moved over to one of the bins of yarn, and tossed over a glittery gold skein he’d seen Len buy almost a month ago. “Use this one. Save the blue one for Shawna.”

“I forgot I had that,” he admitted as he set the sweater aside and stood, fingers flexing.

“Because you hoard yarn.”

“I…” Len paused. “Yeah, that’s fair.”

Mick rolled his eyes.

The End


End file.
